Interdiscplinary approaches to the 14th century crises in Europe

Tag Archives: Researchers

My monograph The Black Death and Later Plague Epidemics in the Scandinavian Countries: Perspectives and Controversies, Berlin: De Greuter, pp. 736, has just appeared: it is published in hardcover edition and also on the Internet in the form of Open access, De Greuter Open, https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/212904 . The book provides much new work on the Black Death, but also translations of works that so far has not been available in English. It also contains several long chapters that relate thoroughly to questions and controversies with respect to the presence of black rats in the Nordic countries (pp. 395-451 with three maps), transmission and dissemination by human ectoparasites, and the early-phase transmission theory or hypothesis rather (as long its advocates cannot explain how pathogenic doses of plague bacteria in the foregut of fleas are moved into a new bite site against the strong stream of a new blood meal).

This involves also the gathering together and presentation of all data on plague bacteraemia in rats and human beings to clarify their potential roles as sources of infection of feeding fleas and lice, the prevalence of bacteremia in rats and human beings measured as number of plague bacteria per mL (mm3) of blood, the volume of blood fleas or lice ingest (µL), and, thus, the potential role of human ectoparasites and rat fleas in the transmission and dissemination of plague bacteria. Finally, there is discussion of border values of Lethal Doses of transmission in the case of human beings and the presence and conditions for transmission of LDs of plague bacteria. There are also studies of the pattern, rhythm and seasonality of the spread of plague epidemics as reflections of and, thus, sources of information on the processes of transmission and dissemination.

The introductory general chapter on plague contains also two specific subchapters that really are lengthy articles. In Chapter 1.5, all paleobiological data on finds of aDNA or F1 antigen of Y. pestis in putative plague graves are gathered together with a comprehensive presentation of the research history and achievements of the new discipline of paleobiology in plague-related research, pp. 73-99. Chapter 1.4, reverts to the topic of alternative theories of plague, in this case an epidemiological alternative, which so far has not been addressed seriously and critically: ‘Serious Plague History under Pressure: The Twelfth Theory of Historical Plague. Comments on the Recent paper “Climate-driven Introductions of the Black Death and Successive Plague Reintroductions into Europe”, pp. 35-72. The relevant points on the role of human ectoparasites in the epidemiology of plague are discussed in the chapters mentioned above.

I will be grateful for all critical and supplementary reactions, which can come to good use now that my English publisher has asked me to write a 2nd edn. of my monograph on the Black Death and I am working on it to the hilt. This is also the case with respect to my previous monograph What Disease was Plague? On the Controversy over the Microbiological Identity of Plague Epidemics of the Past, Leiden: Brill , pp. 746.

I am a PhD student in the department Archaeogenetics of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany. My academic background is Biology (B.Sc./M.Sc.) with specialization in Anthropology and Human Biology. The main project of my PhD is the reconstruction of genomes of Yersinia pestis of both the first (Justinianic Plague) and second pandemic (following the Black Death) in Europe. Additional ancient genomes of Y. pestis are crucial for phylogenetic analyses and allow a more detailed picture of the spatiotemporal distribution of plague.

I’m a historian of medieval medicine and also global health. I have been involved the past few years in trying to find ways to connect the narratives of the history of human health that are now emerging from the historicist sciences (bioarcheology and genomics, broadly writ) and traditional historical methods. I have twice conducted a postdoctoral seminar on medieval health and disease at the Wellcome Library in London. My interest in the Black Death is particularly to take the new scientific findings and use them as a foundation for examining the Black Death as a pandemic that affected many regions of Eurasia and North Africa, rather than privileging only its effects in Europe. I believe, indeed, that both plague and leprosy in the medieval world can be used paradigmatically to study many other issues in global health history.

My latest publication is Monica H. Green, “The Value of Historical Perspective,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to the Globalization of Health, ed. Ted Schrecker (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 17-37. I also work on many non-Black Death related topics in the history of medicine, most extensively now a general history of 12th-century medicine and the School of Salerno.

I am the founder and list manager of MEDMED-L, a listserv for scholars interested in all aspects of premodern history of health and disease. (To register for MEDMED-L, go to the Web interface page: http://lists.asu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=MEDMED-L, click on “Subscribe or Unsubscribe” and follow directions from there.)

ISSN 2199-0891

Presentation

The 14th century AD was a profoundly tumultuous period in European history. Climatic deterioration in the first quarter of the century triggered harvest failures and human famine. In the middle of the century the Black Death swept through Europe killing 30–60% of the population.
Understanding of the 14th-century crises needs:
- a broad interdisciplinary approach, bringing together humanities and sciences;
- a comparative approach to enable the examination of different landscapes with their distinct historical and ecological background.
The Black Death Network intends
- to bring researchers from various disciplines together
- to create an interdisciplinary network sharing information on new research
- to connect students and experienced scholars from all disciplines